1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector harness assembly machine in general. In particular, the present invention relates to a wire handling and fabrication machine; a machine for automatically inserting terminated wire leads into a connector housing; and a connector harness assembly machine which both handles and fabricates the wire automatically, as well as automatically inserting a terminated wire lead into a connector housing.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
In today's ever-growing demand for electronics and, therefore, electrical connector assemblies, there is always a constant need for cutting costs regarding the use of such connectors. A connector assembly conventionally includes a connector housing made of insulated material having a plurality of terminal receiving cavities formed therein and a plurality of like terminals, each being receivable into its corresponding cavity. A plurality of stripped and cut insulation clad wires are adapted to be crimped onto the end of each terminal. It has been found that one of the largest cost factors in employing electrical connectors of this type is cost of assembling the connector.
The assembly process can be broken down into seven general categories:
1. Insulation clad wire, usually provided on a reel, must be cut to a predetermined length and the insulation must be stripped from one end thereof.
2. The cut and stripped wire then has a terminal crimped on the stripped end thereof. One of the problems in performing the crimping operation is to not only properly position a cut and stripped wire lead at a crimp station, but also to ensure that any resultant crimp is satisfactory.
3. Because the wire preparation steps and the wire termination steps are usually performed at two different locations, the cut and stripped wire lead has to be carried between these two locations.
4. The terminated wire lead must then be inserted into a connector housing.
5. There must be some assurance that the right terminated wire lead is inserted into a corresponding terminal receiving cavity of a connector housing.
6. The connector housings must be supplied to an operator performing the insertion operation.
7. The housing must be physically carried from wherever they are supplied to wherever the terminated wire leads are being inserted.
If all of the above operations were done manually, it is easy to see the relatively large expense invested in labor in order to use connector assemblies.
The general concept of automatically preparing a wire in a machine is already well known in the art and is embodied in U.S. Pat. No. 3,769,681, issued Nov. 6, 1973, and entitled "Apparatus for Attaching Terminals to Electric Conductors". The wire handling fabrication machine generally includes a wire preparation means for presenting an insulation clad wire lead that is cut and stripped in a predetermined manner at a pickup station, a crimp station which has a plurality of terminals and means for crimping a terminal onto a wire, a wire carrier for holding a wire, and intermittent drive means associated with the wire carrier for moving the wire between the stations.
The concept of automatically inserting a terminated wire lead is disclosed in U.S. Patent application Ser. No. 538,188, filed Jan. 2, 1975, now U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,147, and entitled "Connector Assembly Machine" and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. A connector harness assembly machine of the type disclosed, automatically inserts a plurality of terminated wire leads, one at a time, into a plurality of corresponding terminal receiving cavities formed in the connector housing.
The very broad concept of providing many of the steps as set forth above is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,766,624, issued Oct. 23, 1973, and entitled "Automatic Lead Making and Wiring Machine". However, the last mentioned patent does not disclose any specific means of effecting the required operations.
In short, no known prior art has effectively combined all seven operations as set forth above into an efficient, totally automatic machine.